The typical
response rate of an e-mail survey of a respondent set of less than
10,000 is between 24-27% (based on a number of methodology reviews
and some data from online survey companies). So at 10%, I'd say that
there would be some sort of interfering factor like the length of
the survey or the perceived topical relevance of the survey to the
respondents.

If anything
below a 25% response rate would be observed, I would be wary of some
results, as the non-responds may be indicative of those with say,
exchange relationships, or those who really don't think much about
the organization at all (the class president, for instance, is more
likely to answer these questions about her high school than the burnout
is). Of course this is an inherent problem in most surveys, and is
just something that should be monitored.

Here's
a related thought, as long as we are on the topic: The Grunig instrument
differs from most "typical" commercial surveys, possibly
so much that people will begin to feel confused about the purpose
of the survey and perhaps exit early as they begin to feel more like
guinea pigs than empowered consumers. (I have absolutely no hard
evidence on this as yet, it's just a thought.) To counteract this,
I'd recommend that the incentive for a relationship survey should
be higher than the incentive for a typical customer satisfaction
survey.

Bruce,
what do you think?

Bruce
AubeSenior Account Manager, KDPaine & Partners:

In general,
I think a 24-27% response rate for an online survey would be deemed
above average in most scenarios. (We did experience a 32% response
rate with our Coos County survey, but I’ve also seen response
rates below 10% for consumer-related studies.) I agree with the rest
of your comments and explanation.

A 15-20%
response rate is a generally accepted business practice. But, without
boring everyone with the details, I recall managing a project for
a consumer-protection entity that required a 60% response rate. It
really depends on how the data is used – to help direct business
decision making vs. something like that consumer protection project
that was going to be published in industry journals.